The present invention relates to the field of mail handling, and more particularly to apparatus for preparing a mail item fully, ready for posting, from creating the document to printing the postage on or xe2x80x9cfrankingxe2x80x9d the envelope into which the document is inserted.
The market currently offers no system in an office environment that is completely self-contained and that prepares mail items fully, ready for posting.
The Applicant""s European Patent Application EP 0 612 036 proposes a mail-handling system that folds documents delivered directly by a word-processing system and inserts them into envelopes. However, it is possible to send the resulting mail item only if the envelope bears the destination address and the right amount of postage, which means that, at the very least, a postage meter must be added to the system.
European Patent Application EP 0 265 192 discloses a mail-handling system associating the following around a central computer (system controller): firstly a laser printer followed by a folder/inserter for folding documents and inserting them into envelopes, and secondly an ink jet printer for printing the destination addresses on the envelopes. It should be noted that such a system does not print postage amounts on the resulting mail items. Furthermore, printing addresses directly on envelopes containing documents suffers from drawbacks (with respect to printing quality) due to the different thicknesses of the envelopes.
The problem of printing quality is solved in Patent Application EP 0 745 435 by printing the envelopes before the documents are inserted into them. The empty envelopes are printed by an ink jet printer, with the documents being printed independently by a laser printer. However, the system for preparing mail items described in that document remains complex, in particular with respect to the paths followed by the mail items, and it requires a number of components such that it cannot be used in practice in an office environment in which inevitably only a small amount of space is available.
Those are the main reasons that led the Applicant to file Patent Application No. 97 11798 which describes a system enabling a mail item to be handled fully and implementing a single digital printer for printing both the document and the envelope, including printing of the postage imprint. Unfortunately, while being generally satisfactory, that system suffers from two drawbacks. The first drawback comes from the fact that the encoding of the postage imprint, which is necessary to guarantee the security of the metering data and which busies the single printer for a length of time that can be long (e.g. when a two-dimensional bar code is displayed), results in a reduction in the maximum handling speed of the system as whole. In addition, in the event of a document jam in the folding and insertion module, the recording of the metering characteristics that has been performed in parallel with the prior printing of the postage imprint at the print module of the printer must then be cancelled in order to prevent erroneous accounting of the mail items actually posted. The postal authorities have no way of verifying that the cancelled mail item has not been sent fraudulently, except by insisting that one of their employees intervene for each incident.
The present invention proposes a system that is fully self-contained, that is very simple to use in a conventional office environment, and that is designed to handle a mail item fully, from compiling the individual documents forming the mail item to sealing the mail item so that it can be posted, and including folding documents and inserting them into an envelope, printing all of the appropriate information on the envelope, in particular the destination address, and affixing the postage imprint. An object of the invention is to provide a system that enables high handling rates to be achieved. Another object of the invention is to propose a system which limits the possibilities of fraud when a mail item is incompletely, e.g. when there is a document jam.
These objects are achieved by a self-contained multi-function system for preparing mail items, the system comprising a general-purpose computer for preparing a document to be sent and for preparing secure postage metering or xe2x80x9cfrankingxe2x80x9d information, a digital imaging device connected to the general-purpose computer so as to print both the document to be sent, and at least a destination address for the document but not the postage imprint on an envelope that is to receive the document, and a folder/inserter connected both to the digital imaging device and to the general-purpose computer so as to receive and fold the printed document, and, once said document has been inserted in the envelope, so as to affix the postage imprint selectively by performing a write operation in a writable microcircuit of an electronic tag carried by the envelope or by the document.
Thus, with the structure of the invention, all of the functions required for preparing a mail item are performed very simply by means of a conventional imaging device associated with a computer and with a folder/inserter. In addition, since the postage imprint is affixed by electronic marking at the end of the cycle only, it is possible to avoid fraud on the postage amounts which are thus recorded only once the mail item has been fully formed.
The imaging device includes envelope feed means, unprinted document feed means, a print module connected either to the envelope feed means or to the document feed means so as to print successively the envelope and the documents, and a document outlet connected to the print module so as to deliver the printed envelopes and the printed documents to the folder/inserter, a control module also being provided for controlling printing of and synchronizing conveying of the envelopes and documents as a function, in particular, of instructions received from the general-purpose computer.
The folder/inserter includes an accumulator module connected to a document inlet designed to co-operate with the document outlet of said digital imaging device so as to store, when necessary, the various documents corresponding to a given envelope, a fold module connected either to the document inlet or to the accumulator module to fold the documents before they are inserted into the envelope, a turn-around module connected to the document inlet so as to receive and position the envelope so that the documents can be inserted therein, an inserter module connected to the fold module and to the turn-around module so as to insert the documents into the corresponding envelope, and an electronic marking module disposed at the outlet of the inserter module so as to perform the write operation in the writable microcircuit of the electronic tag carried by the envelope or by the documents, before ejecting the resulting mail item to a document outlet, a control module also being provided for controlling and synchronizing the various modules as a function, in particular, of instructions received from the general-purpose computer.
Preferably, the digital imaging device further includes an optical read module for making it possible to digitize documents inserted directly into said device, and a fax-sending module for enabling documents that have been previously digitized by said optical read module to be transmitted directly over a communications network.
Advantageously, a first document-receiving tray may be provided at the outlet of the print module so as to receive printed documents that are not to be sent.
The print module of said digital imaging device may include one of the following two elements: a laser print drum or an ink jet print head.
Advantageously, the folder/inserter may further include an additional feed module for feeding in advertising leaflets.
In an advantageous embodiment of the invention, the digital imaging device and the folder/inserter form a common assembly.